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Sunday, March 22, 2009

Putting People First, Earth Hour and Bikes

This morning's notices included one from Rosemary about the Put People First march next Saturday. Six people from the congregation will be catching the train to join the service at Central Hall, Westminster and for the march afterwards. This march is to give a message to the G20 meeting in London on 2nd April:

Our future depends on creating an economy based on fair distribution of wealth, decent jobs for all and a low carbon future.

There can be no going back to business as usual.

I gave a notice too: we have applied for the Eco-congregation award and will soon be visited by assessors. I've put the details of the application on the Eco-congregation notice board for comments, queries and additions.

As usual on Mothering Sunday, the cubs and scouts were present to hand out the flowers. Often it's a worship together service but this year it was a normal communion so we invited them to join Exclaimers for the middle part of the service. Exclaimers have been looking at the Lord's Prayer this term and had reached 'Deliver us from evil'. Among many other definitions and explanations the issue of climate change was mentioned and we all made beeswax candles, both as a symbol of the light of the world that drives away evil and specifically to use in Earth Hour, also next Saturday: an hour to switch off all lights to demonstrate our support for action to protect the planet, especially in the run up to the London G20 meeting. I was surprised by how few people have heard of Earth Hour since Reading Borough Council and Reading football team have apparently signed up to it and it is being well advertised on buses around town. The very safe and easy to make beeswax candle kits came from the Museum of English Rural Life.

Over coffee afterwards Vicky came up to tell me that we have a pleasant problem with cycle parking. Vicky's dedicated cycling in all conditions inspired me to get a grip on my own fear of night cycling. Now that spring is upon us more folk are coming to church by bike - we only have four bike racks (ie space for 8 bikes) but there were twelve bikes parked out the front this morning.

1 comment:

Thanks for promoting Earth Hour! Another way you can recruit people to the cause is by creating a Earth Hour group on Commit21.com. Simply create a group about one action that you will commit to do for Earth Hour and recruit your friends, family, and co-workers to get involved in that action as well. When it comes to climate change, simple actions can make huge differences and Commit21 leverages social media to influence networks of friends, family, and co-workers. Check it out at http://www.commit21.com/

Us

Church of St John and St Stephen, Newtown, Reading. EcoCongregation

About this blog

I started this blog in November 2007 as a resource and a record of our church's journey towards becoming an EcoCongregation. In May 2009 we were assessed for the award and passed. It was due for renewal in 2012 but due to significant plans for rebuilding our church/school plant it seemed appropriate to wait a while. Once EcoCongregation was relaunched as EcoChurch we registered - various earlier activities had stopped or become infrequent so we were unsurprised to find we didn't make bronze. So a new journey has begun.

I hope that church members will find the blog useful and that it is also helpful to others with a concern for our environment. Please use any of the liturgy, green tips or ideas on it as you like. It would be lovely to hear back if you do. It would also be great to hear ideas and experiences from other churches.

The views expressed herein are my own and may not reflect those of all of the congregation.

The church of St John and St Stephen in Newtown, Reading is attached to a school with minimal green space. The Sunday morning congregation (about 70 from an electoral roll of just over 100) includes a wide range of ages and backgrounds and has long been concerned with overseas development issues (we are a Fairtrade church who support Tearfund and Christian Aid and several mission organisations. A number of the congregation are or have been involved in development and/or overseas mission). This concern was the inspiration for the decision to try to become an EcoCongregation.